SUBSCRIBE VIA RSSIf you haven’t yet seen “Nursery University,” you have to. It’s like a train wreck that you just can’t take your eyes off of.
My first impression was that it was a fake documentary in the vein of “Best in Show” because I didn’t think people could genuinely become this obsessed over being awarded the privilege of spending $17,000 per SEMESTER for Preschool.
Seventeen grand!
All so their child could fingerpaint and assemble puzzles before applying to Harvard.
It's listed in the "Feel Good" genre because you're going to feel really good that this isn't you.
These parents acted as though their children risked spending the rest of their unemployable lives in a cardboard box if they weren’t accepted by Highbrow University. Fearing that any and all future academic potential could be squandered, they treated the process with the same passion and panic as someone trying to get their child into the top Ivy League schools.
As their child sat in a corner blowing snot bubbles and babbling to the cat, the parents labored over admission papers and even threatened to move out of New York City if they were rejected. Because seriously, how can you show your face in Bloomingdales if your child isn’t doodling with the best?
These parents furiously completed numerous applications, sought help from Preschool Acceptance Advisers (yes, this IS a career), and one dude even broke out a Thesaurus hoping to score the perfect word for his essay. The pretentiousness was dripping midway through the film, yet I found myself only wanting more. If only to see just how far off the ledge these parents could step without plummeting into the lap of reality.
As I listened to the interviews given by school administrators (people treated in the same reverence as the Pope and sometimes God himself), I wondered what would have transpired if we had strolled in one day with Kamryn in tow.
Two parents were somewhat embarrassed that their toddler only spoke two languages. Kamryn has yet to master one.
Two other parents appeared to hyperventilate as they watched their child fumble with a backwards puzzle piece in the presence of an interviewer. They played it off all cool and calm but I have to imagine that child is now sitting on the Returns shelf at Saks Fifth Avenue.
The interviewer would ask questions like, “What does your child hope to get from Arrogance House?”
While my answer would have been “Raisins,” these parents waxed poetic buzzwords such as diversity, personal fulfillment, and social enrichment. This caused the interviewer to nod, which sparked a verbal frenzy of fancy words from parents who thought they had one on the hook. By the end of the interview I believe they were speaking Latin.
Parents and interviewers alike were so impressed with each child’s ability to speak fluently, enunciate properly, and maintain focus. Well, I can tell you right now that if these are prerequisites for admission to “The SnootyPie School for Future Elitist Blowhards” then Kamryn would probably be the first one rejected.
On the plus side, we’d save $34,000 a year. But it’s kind of a bummer to know that all of her academic potential would be clubbed to death before she even learned to tie her shoes.
Kamryn's first day at Commonfolk Nursery School
We’ve never really been the type of parents to obsess over perfection. I’m living proof that you can meander through life being far less than perfect in every facet of your existence and yet still revel in happiness and blessings.
So when our daughter mispronounces words, we don’t admonish her for it. We simply tell her the proper way to say it. To which she’ll stare back blankly wondering why we’re interrupting her story.
Usually, we just let her speak, knowing full well that we’re the only ones able to comprehend her gibberish. And sometimes, an incorrectly pronounced word turns out to be one of the cutest things on the planet. A word that’s far too adorable to rectify. Even if it means we’re sacrificing her spot at a prestigiously overpriced Manhattan Preschool.
So when Kamryn walks around the house singing and mangling the alphabet, we let her. It’s not the end of the world, and I really don’t think she needs to be stopped and corrected at each and every turn. We pick our battles and while we do teach her new words, correct words, and share how to properly pronounce words, we do have a little library of words we’re happy to wait out.
After all, she won’t sit at the dinner table asking for a “fork” and a “foon” forever.
So even though she’s unable to sing her ABC’s perfectly at the age of three, we’re not worried. We still have time. And I’m pretty sure she’ll nail it before her college interviews.
So for now? I say sing away, Sweetheart.
“A-B-C-D, E-F-G…
H-I-J-K-and a Lemon P…
Q is S, T is V. W-S, Y-Z…
Now I (incoherent babble) long with me!”
Aren’t these kinds of moments the reason we even have children? I mean, aside from scoring free labor and all?
We had the same philosophy with Andrew and Michael. We corrected words that mattered and left the adorable mistakes alone.
When Andrew was first starting to read he wanted to show me his “Psyduck” Pokemon card. He walked up, pointed at the card, and proudly said, “Look, Daddy. It’s Pissyduck.”
Phonetically, the kid was a genius. I couldn’t stifle that. We just let it roll and had him show off his card to my befuddled parents.
And when Michael was two and wanted to see something far, far away, he’d always ask to look through my “Finoculars”. Rather than correct him, we just handed them over.
When Michael wanted a cool glass of “nenade” on a hot summer day, we squeezed the lemons.
If Kamryn wants a “pockee-yay,” we’re the only people on earth that know she wants a popsicle.
Then there’s “nareware,” of which you have boxers and briefs. There’s “cancakes” with syrup, spending nights in “hoo-tels,” and the melt in your mouth not in your hands delight of “Lemon-M’s”.
And when Michael rapped his knuckles on our banister causing them to bleed, he cried, worried that he had broken his “finger ribs.”
You just can’t correct this stuff. Because once you do, the cute words are gone forever.
Selfish? Probably. Damaging? Doubtful. They grow out of it. And they’ll eventually and naturally learn the proper pronunciations.
Much to our dismay.
So what are some of your uncorrectable kid phrases? I know we can’t be alone in not pursuing absolute perfection.
_____________________________________
{ 1 trackback }
{ 94 comments… read them below or add one }
Love it! My daugter calls the remote control a “motor-mote”. I’ve never corrected her…
When my daughter, Brenna, was a baby I used to sing a song to her to the tune of Ernie’s Rubber Ducky song that went “Brenna-baby you’re the one…” I didn’t know until she was 2years old in the church nursery that she thought Brenna-baby-the-one was her name.
Great post! I always wonder about some of the so called “films” on Netflix!
My kiddos love to mangle words and frankly…I love it! My son calls soy sauce , “soil sauce”, chicken nauggets for chicken nuggets and goalf for golf…
My oldest came to me asking if I had ever heard of a magician named “Harry Houndy” and though no words were mispronounced, he also came in to a family gathering with his toy gun and shouted “everybody move!” to which everyone started to dance to the beat of their own drummer, except my mom who may have been slightly horrified that he had a gun…
He is 17 now and though he has no desire to go to Harvard, he is learning to bend the computer to his will and is working an internship in Information Technology. All good in my book.
WG
It’s the grandkids now but the 1 year old has taken to yelling “Duck!” when ever he is ‘stuck’. He loves yelling it so much that he purposely puts himself in precarious places just so he call yell “Duck! Duck!” (It does get our attention)
And a friends child would say “fused” for confused. I decided he was right, confused people are usually just fused in their thinking just then. So I use his version all the time.
When our daughter attended pre school there were threes little girls named Courtney in her class. The teachers always wrote Courtney D. on all of her papers. Unfortunately, while helping her to write this herself, they would say “Courtney D dot” and as a consequence, out in the world when asked her name she would answer “Courtney Deedot”. She is now 30 and among family and friends still answers to DeeDot:) Patti
And then, there was the time when the local Girl Scouts were recruiting for the Brownies. Courtney decided when she was old enough to join she would rather be a “cake”. patti
We rarely have ever gone here, but we always liked when my daughter (now 16) suggested “Frucky Fried Chicken”. “Sawl” still slips out when she’s telling us what she saw.
My son used to love watching out the window for the “firefrucks”. And my granddaughter, who is as proficient as any high schooler with an IPad, loves to play on our “Pun-cuter”.
It’s really nice to stream for free movies. What’s the latest movie you’ve streamed? I would like to watch a movie tonight!
Cool and interesting movies above!
-Carrie
My twin girls love to ring the “ding bell” (door bell). And they called my brother (Drew) Unca Doo Doo for ages. I’m actually really kind of sad they can pronounce the “R” now.
I’m right there with you. My in-laws were visiting recently and I had to ask them to stop correctly my daughter’s mispronunciations. I just love them too much. She’ll learn in plenty of time that undergarments are not “pantsies” and that she doesn’t brush her teeth to prevent “babities.” For now it’s just too cute. Oh, and she loves going to “whoo-tells”, too.
I saw that movie, too. Every minute of it, and I couldn’t stop. Our daughter was pretty verbal early on, but at the age of four she still hadn’t mastered the task of stopping what she was doing to go to the bathroom. Had your blog been around then I could have told the preschool director that she was “still exhibiting signs of procrastiurination not uncommon in children advanced in social fulfillment”. But not with a straight face.
With 5 adorable children we have long had our share of mispronounced and celebrated words. Now that they are teens I am still fascinated at which words have stayed (and yes we still don’t correct them – they’re our family words!). They are babing suits (bathing suits) and yem and yems (M&Ms). These words coming out of the mouths of gifted 12 year olds remind me that kids grow up way to fast and that pronunciation has nothing to do with intelligence.
I’m 28 and still say liberry *library* and aminals *animals* my friends think its weird the first time I say it infront of them and then they start doing it too. So I totally understand! <3
HAHA!! You totally had me at the ‘bleached rinse.’
Then again at ‘visions of intestines and man smooches out of my brain’!!
Smooch is such a good word…I am totally going to start using it more.
Yikes. If I had $35,000 to spend on preschool I wouldn’t. I’m going to have to watch that train wreck in Fantasy section. My littlest would call the remote the merote which was funny every time. I like to think that’s the kind of creative thinking that makes great inventors.
speaking of worst movies ever made have you heard of mystery science theater 3000? if not.. You gotta look it up on netflix, this is the kind of humor you would love! Its 3 guys who basically make their own hilarious commentary while watching the WORST movies ever made. I’d start with either “A Touch of Satan (its really worse then the title lol) or the “Final Sacrifice” Trust me on this one, you’ll be glad you did!
My 3 year old daughter can’t say her L’s, they come out like Y’s, so she has yips for lips, yegs for legs and she calls her stuffed lamb “Yammy”.
Also, she refers to Winnie the Pooh as “Weenie the Poon”, which sends my husband and I into hysterical fits regardless of how many times she says it. We really shouldn’t encourage it, but it’s such a once in a lifetime translation!
These are all SO funny.
I think Weenie the Poon sounds like a fantastic cartoon. It couldn’t rate any worse than Otto.
I’m thinking “Weenie the Poon” might actually go in a more… “adult” section… #justsayin
It breaks my heart every time one of our kiddos figures out the correct way to say something. My daughter’s favorite chinese food was Sesame Street Chicken for the longest time. And sometimes she would ask if we could pick up burgers from Old McDonald’s for lunch. I still wish she would ask to wear her ma-kini to the beach. Now you’ve made me all nostalgic!!
Just yesterday my daughter asked me for a gorilla bar (granola) and my son loves to watch our luggage come out on the veytor belt at the airport.
I now have a new movie list. Thanks!
Too bad they didn’t have a fill in the blank answer for your thoughts on Otto.
the cute stuff is the best!
The two words that first come to mind came from my oldest daughter when she was 2. She talked early and ALL the time…but she surely wasn’t without those cute and often hilarious word mishaps! My favorite was “Troll-a-moat” for remote control. I loved the way she said it with her innocent little voice….usually followed by “uh-oh” and my husband following her to fish said “troll-a-moat” from our toilet. The second was not my favorite, but definitely the most memorable. It was excitedly spoken (much to my surprise) in the lobby of a crowded insurance agency. I was talking to the receptionist when my daughter started tugging at my coat and requesting me to “LOOK”. Unfortunately, I didn’t immediately respond (in two tenths of a second) and give my undivided attention to her. She then loudly and impatiently asked me to “LOOK Mommy!” before poking her little chubby finger into my backside and belting out “BIG COCK!! Seeeee da BIG COCK?! Dats a NICE COCK! Youuu like COCK Mommy?!” I was silenced (as was everyone else in in the room) when I did look. I followed her eyes though to the large CLOCK above the doorway and quickly said to the (now mortified & “0″ faced) receptionist, “OH, she was saying “Clock”, haha not COCK, just Clock…Yup, like the one on your wall there!” I pointed at it and tried not to laugh as my face burned red. That was one of those word mishaps, that when publicly made, are not easily forgotten BUT do make for pretty good “Guess what my kid did” stories!
One of my 5 year old twins doesn’t pronounce some of his letters correctly. Two of them that are similar to your story are “arts and craps” and when he “shits” in a chair. I always feel like I need to (somewhat) loudly correct him when we’re in public and I turn red. All other mispronunciations will correct themselves when he’s ready.
Gay Zombie Porn??? Uh….
As for the whole Elite Preschool? We were lucky to get into the district preschool because our income was at the upper echelon of ‘poor’. I’m not kidding. Being smart and poor isn’t fun. Funny that I saw many of the parents driving Escalades and Mercedes while I drive a Maza 626 circa 1990. But we almost didn’t qualify?
Apparently, if you want your child to have any chance of being an Ivy League Blowhard Snob Serial Killer, you must get on the preschool waiting list before they are even a glimmer in their daddy’s eye. Honestly, I don’t believe that these tres expensive preschools, elementary and high school preps do anything other than mold another generation of self-aggrandizing braggarts who can’t make it in the real world if their lives depended on it.
Why is it that these highbrow types don’t think that kids should be kids?
By the way, Ro spoke THREE languages when she started preschool: English, American Sign and Rowanese.
Well…sadly I have no children *or want them, Greg even answered a Pearl of Wisdom blog for me! Hazaa!* But I DO have a wonderful Niece and my mother loves to tell the story of the week she spent with her Granddaughter. She taught her a little song when showing her how to put her shoes and socks on *she was 2*. It would go: Socks and Shoes, Shoes and Socks…etc. But my neice couldn’t say shoes…so she called them Oosh *I have no idea how you would spell that, so thats my madeup version*. Yeah, so thats my story. Unless you want to hear about my cats. Who can be very cute in their own way. Though they don’t talk…they do some whacky things.
Oh, she also used to call my mom Gamma…which now she is 6…we are trying to get her to KEEP calling her Gamma. She doesnt though. :-*( So KEEP those cute words! They do mean a lot! <3
I share the same philosophy about correcting the mispronunciations. Flootbal instead of football. Chocolick intstead of chocolate. Now the hard part is stopping my 7 year old from correcting my 4 year old in time. Latest gem was when we came back from visiting my brother and his kids in Florida for Christmas. His daughter’s name is Leela. Now when they play Lego Star Wars on the Wii it’s Princess Leela, not Leia.
When my daughter was six, she had just discovered a book of horoscopes. She proudly began reading them aloud to me, beginning with “Pisses the Fish”… I laughed hysterically for five minutes straight and then finished listening to the predictions for all Pisses.
Let’s see. We have “panic cakes” (pancakes) and “woefulls”(waffles) for breakfast. One time she was saying “dig” but it did NOT sound like dig. I was like “WHAT?? What are you saying??!”
“Dig!”
“Where did you hear THAT???”
“From Daddy!”
“Well that just figures!”
“Yeah, dig! Dig dig dig!
“Baby you can’t say that anymore!
“But why? He digs outside.”
“………. oh. DIG. Got it.”
On the plus side, my oldest is learning how to sound things out, which she is getting very good at, but she’s very literal about. “s-h-a-k-e. Sss-hu-ah-keee?” “Shake, baby. It says shake.” “No. It says sss-huahkee.”The bad part? When she puts her own letters together and tries to sound them out. Like “c-o-c”. I had to explain that “c-o-c” was NOT a word……
When my niece was three or four, she used to say, “Mine” instead of my. None of us said a word to our little dictator in training. It was just too cute to correct.
I’m new here! Love it! My oldest son was the master of mispronunciation, and we totally fell apart one evening at McDonald’s when he demanded “chicken nuts” for dinner.
I have always loved the “wrong” words, and frequently reminded my husband to leave the kids alone…they would work themselves out on their own. I was always sad to see them leave. One of my favorites was “butts” for the remote control (called anything with buttons “butts”) — we still call it that, e.g. “where is the butts?” We knew we were eating out too much when my oldest sang the song he learned about Johnny Appleseed as “Johnny Applebee’s”, and now my youngest has coined the term “hanitizer” for hand sanitizer. Although the most embarassing was probably that my oldest pronounced trucks as “kucks” for quite awhile.
My son needed a washwog when he took his bath.
His brother wanted plenty of NoNog at Christmas time.
Both adorable. I still miss those words.
Me, I wanted to eat bum bums (m&m’s) because they made my Cheerios muscle (my butt) grow stronger. Oh and the moon’s name is John and he is my friend. So of course when my kids were little, I told them the moon’s name was John. John Moon. They’re in their twenties, and it’s not uncommon to hear someone say, ooh, look at John tonight.
Can’t wait until I can introduce John to some grand babies.
There are many, many adorable mispronunciations in our household, but the few I can think of off the top of my head are: helltel (hotel), Chicklips (Chiclets gum), legular (regular), hanitizer (hand sanitizer), and my personal favorite, slip-slops (flip-flops).
HAH! My sons says “Slip-Slops”
My daughter used to say “fligilator” for refrigerator. When she was 3ish, my parents bought her a kitchen set for Christmas. She unwrapped the refrigerator first and opened its door and grinned, saying, “OOOHHHH! Look! A door!!”
Our youngest used to say:
Remote – memote
Burger King – boogar came
No way Jose – no Jose
Hercules (our dog) – Hunkules
Frog – fuk (we always encouraged “toad”)
M&M’s – nem n’ nem’s
Cheerios – ohsies
Brittany (her sister) – Bitbee
And we she was “growed up” she wanted to be a “veginarian” – vegetarian veterinarian?
I’m sure there are several others but sadly I’ve forgot them in the last ten years
My 3 year old refers to her eyebrows as “forehead hairs”, when she sits on her foot and it falls asleep it is “sprinkling”, and her baby brother has a “peanuts”. Oh, and she often refers to her Daddy as “Honey”, since that is what she hears me call him.
I could barely read this post because I kept going back to the first paragraph to make sure I read that correctly – $17, ZERO ZERO ZERO.
My daughter went to regular daycare/preschool…she may not be a rocket scientist yet, but at least she’s well-adjusted!
My younger daughter used to say “Pliget” for Piglet, “mantelope” for mantel, and “hedgewog” for hedgehog. She’s 16 now — a straight-A student with a better vocabulary than most of her friends, and enunciates perfectly. I still kinda miss those old words, though :/
There are so many…
shit=shirt as in, “Mommy, I sweaty! Can you help me take my shit off?”
Moat=remote
bleed=any booboo
piss=purse
pupe=poop
grandpire=vampire
ka-zombies=zombies(yeah, she doesn’t sleep much in this household)
clause=pause
I love them all! Oh yeah, she’s smart as a whip for $600/month at daycare AND they let her be a kid while learning!
hahaha Love these. =)
My son and I were standing on the end of the dock overlooking Lake Washington one early spring day and the wind was whipping around us when he made the observation “it’s blowing like a whore-a-cain out here!”.
He also said “this irrigates me” instead of irritates. hah!
My mom was trying to get the inside scoop on his kindergarten teacher from him and asked if she was young or old. He replied that she was old but didn’t have as many “crinkles” as Grammas do.
He’s turned out beautifully and not one penny was spent on preschool for him!
When my now 14 year old sister was 1-2 years old, we used to read Eric Carle books to her before bed. Her favorite was “Brown Bear, Brown Bear”, and when we read the Peacock page, she would tell us that she saw a “pee-hawk-ee” looking at her. That was definitely the most memorable mispronunciation. So adorable!
Also, when I was little, I couldn’t quite master saying “Grandma and Grandpa” so I named my mom’s parents “Mammaw and Pampaw”. The names stuck, and I call them that to this day. My 3 younger siblings and other additions also call them this, so I like to think of myself as a pretty cool trendsetter!
Oh, another pretty funny one: I grew up in Yorba Linda, CA (near Los Angeles). When I was about 3 my mom told me we were going “back home to Yorba Linda” and I said “No! It’s MY Belinda!” This, of course, made my family members start trying to get me to say it in front of other people, but somehow I didn’t catch on until I was about 5 or 6.
My daughter used to call our balcony a ‘barcoly’ and she had the cutest southern accent, whereas she couldn’t pronounce hard ‘R’s so squirrels were ‘squoils’ and girls were ‘goils’ and there was ‘theya’ and here was ‘heeya’. It was the cutest damn thing, ever. We never corrected her and she speaks just fine now.
My daughter is about the same age as yours. She still mangles the alphabet, singing “ABCDEF-CHEESE-AKE-I-GAY-K-NMNOP….” Cutest thing ever…. We’ll miss their sweet innocent voices “weawy awot” when they grow up.
My 4yr old calls cereal “sealer” and I think I may actually be sad the day he figures out how to pronounce it correctly.
My 4 year old daughter calls her umbrella her “cinderella”. She also calls McDonalds restaurant “Old McDonalds”
My son (who is 8 now) called the local “Cumberland Farms” convenience store “Cucumber Farms” and he called the state of New Hampshire “New Hampster”.
All of it too darn cute to correct!
Some of the standouts from my kids early years were Seeping Boobie (Sleeping Beauty), Berry trange (very strange),Shushee (horsie) and much to my brother’s dismay, Unkie Fat. And let’s not even discuss why pumpkins were ALWAYS called Jack O’Lanterns at our house, even if they weren’t carved.
I seriously almost spit out my drink at Seeping Boobie!!! LOL so funny!
My oldest had Eggwaysocker (helicopter), f&*% (truck – the tr- sound escaped him for awhile), and Chewkabuka (Chewbacca). The younger one has so many the only one I can remember is memonde (lemonade). The poor kid is actually in speech therapy. With him, it’s more striking with us the words that he can pronounce properly that are seemingly difficult vs. the ones that he can’t that seem easy to us.
When my brother & I were little, our dad told us that Soy Sauce was made out of squished bugs and that’s why it was so black, we of course were grossed out and fascinated at the same time… so to this day, we all call it “bug juice”.
My kids had dozens, but my favorite had to be my baby sister’s mangled rendition of Kenny Rogers’ “Lucille” when she was four..
“..you picked a fine time to leave me Lucille!
With four hundred children and the cops in the field!
I’ve been reading for a while but haven’t commented until now, but had to chime in as my daughter had many mangled words. We still use some today and she’s almost 20: slowpost (slowpoke), tumblewheels (tumbleweeds), and Disleyland. Others were more a little harder to get, like quesadilla, until I heard it in a sentence. “I will bring my sweater in quesadilla” which translated into “in case I need it”. She also did one which is still in use today in the whole family: her dad’s family is Hispanic and her grandmother was referred to as “abuelita mia” which is like little grammy in Spanish. My daughter couldn’t say the whole phrase so it came out as Mita Mia. All the grandchildren call her that and have for years. I was sad when the cute word phase ended.
It took a while, but we finally clued in that our daughter was politely saying “farton me” instead of “pardon me” after she … well, passed gas. Which makes perfect sense when you think about it.
ROFL! I think I will add this to *my* vocabulary!
Between 2 and 4 years of age, my son has said lots of adorable things. In 2 languages, since we are bilingual. Some are :
May-muck (mail truck)
Yev-vev-s truck ( UPS truck)
Ugg (egg)
I very love you,Mommy
“need” is eat, which is very funny when he says , “I eat my shoes, Mommy!”
Ploblum (problem)
Jummaastics (gymnastics)
Snap time (nap time)
I have a running document of all these gems so that I never forget them
Joe always said Wegbings for Wegmans, fr fries for french fries and Daddy’s shhhicken for the chicken statue at the poultry farm we passed on the way to his sitter’s when he was little. Oh for the days when he would say, “Mama, fr fry pease?” Now he’s almost 16 and waiting for the car keys!
My son said “patch-egg” instead of “package” for years. As in, “Look, Mommy! We got a patchegg in the mail!”
He also (still) confuses the word “vegan” with “virgin” which makes for some very interesting conversations. “Daddy, Uncle Keith is a virgin, right?” (blank stare) “You know, he’s a virgin, he doesn’t eat meat or cheese!”
We too have lots…Make-up Donald’s. M&M&M’s. Bonka (for Grandpa)…and so many more. Here’s hoping a few survive for years to come!
My daughter had 2 words that I still find adorable and hilarious. the first was heatbeep for heartbeat and the second was count-you-later for a calculator. Oh how time flies!
My nearly-17-year-old daughter had some really fun ones… every once in a while we sit around the family dinner table and reminisce about the funny things all the kids have said over the years.
Peek hole – for the peep hole in the door (she still calls it that)
Fly swapper – fly swatter
Panio instead of piano
Keenzit – Kleenex
Pater ta toos – Paper towels
Uh oh yos – Spaghetti Os
Dot dog – hot dog
nemenemenem (always 3) – M & Ms
As a lover of language, I’m always amused at how kids come up with the words that they do.
For our just-turned-4 year old, the fridge is a “frigilator”, the garage is the “ra-grage”, her lips are “chopped” (and a nearby town is “Choppel Hill”). She also STILL can’t tell when it is appropriate to use “she” vs. “her” (though, for some reason “he” and “him” don’t cause her confusion). Oh, and “eleventeen” is a completely valid number when you can’t think of what comes next. =)
Eleventeen comes after 10 in our house… forty-teen, however, is what is used when I ask the 3 year old how much longer it will take her to put her jacket and shoes on. “Fortyteen minutes Mommy”. And at the pace a toddler moves, it feels like that long, too.
The time on my son’s clock is always, “Forty-five Eighty ‘O’ Clock”.
When my eldest was younger she saw me changing my contacts. I explained what I was doing and to this day I use her phrase whenever I change my ‘eye tax’.
My daughter used to call the dustpan the “bust-ass.” Fairly apropos, I’d say.
Too many years ago my sister was fostering 3 little boys. The middle boy (i think he was 3 or 4) was in heaven when he came over because we had a dog. Her name was “Venus”. My mother (who is no longer with us) was over one day when the boys were there and she saw him standing in the back yard calling the dog “Penis, here Penis”. I think we laughed for 2 days over that. We hadn’t told her what he was doing so we could see her reaction to the real thing. Ahhh, good times.
Our daughter turned two in October, and for the most part says things correctly. She does however call butterflies something that sounds a lot like pot-pies which I think is adorable. She also sings the ABCs much the same way as Kamryn, but instead of W coming out “double u” it is more of a “dugga-u”. Oh! She also calls shoes “yous” and her friend Addison (Addie) is “yaddie” and her friend Zoe is “wee-wee”.
I see no need at this point to fix any of this.
My son had tons of funny words. Hine-hine=airplane; what-wees= glasses (hun what-wees for sunglasses); Ga-Ga=his sister Sadie; monk=milk; opiemeal=oatmeal. He’s 5 and he still uses some of them, not because he doesn’t know or can’t say the appropriate word, but because it’s kind of a family thing now that I hope we share for a long time.
My son is 6 and still calls our dog “Oviler” instead of Oliver and says “aminals” instead of animals! I think it is too cute to correct and well, he would just argue with me anyway!
I still have a tape of my youngest (now 28) saying the pledge…at age 4
“I pedg a regence to da fag
of the Uknifed tates of America
An to the refuflic of which it tands…
When my sister was just learning to read, there was a sign at the end of our very bumpy, dirt road that said “Frost Heaves”. She read it as “Forest Heavies” and that is what we have called them ever since
When the now 15-year-old was 3, I had to constantly fight with the in-laws to not correct him. They still to this day find it irritating to reminisce about the words he just simply couldn’t say.
My favorite was his Uncle Joseph’s name. He called him Jophus. Cracked me up, but they wanted nothing to do with it.
Also, the cartoon “Angry Beavers” was “Anchored Feebers.” He’d sing his version of the theme song all day long.
I miss those days…
My family still says “picmic” (picnic) and “mazagine” (magazine, duh) from when I was a kid. My sister got in on the action by calling napkins “lapkins,” which actually makes more sense.
I love the “and a Lemon P” in the alphabet!
My adorable niece says these things:
Amanda- Manna
Toenails- Nonails
Pediasure milk- Bearmilk
Tattoo- Tattoon
Video- Bideo
Oh, and she calls herself: Princess Lexie.
My 3 year old digs “pee-nun bunner” instead of peanut butter, likes to watch “golfins” swim in the sea, and sometimes calls his father “Daddy GaGa.” I totally can’t complain about any of these things.
our favorites from our almost 2-year-old are “back-a-back” (caterpillar), “go-go” (yogurt), and “yucko” (which is not a mispronunciation, but is adorable). we are also rather in love with every time he gives us hugs and then pronounces himself to be “sooooo sweet!”
i completely support not correcting this over-abundance of cuteness, and hope he doesn’t outgrow it for a while yet.
My boys are 4 and 7. My older son used to call raisins “veen-yo” when he was a toddler. I still prefer that. My younger son says “zert” for dessert and comes to me whenever he gets “injuried”. They both say “eye-cotee” for coyote, so that’s what we all call them now. I like eyecotees, seems easier to say.They beg to go to “Old McDonalds” or more recently “The Donalds” (makes it sound like it’s some Donald Trump place). I now they’ve said so many more great words that I just can’t think of. I love all of their words, often more than the “correct” ones.
You try so hard not to giggle when your kids say the wrong thing…
my son (now 5):
nuggets: maggots (and no matter how many times I told him it was nuggets he will still say maggots… try asking for that at McDonalds)
truck: f**k.. rather embarrasing the many times he’d say that in front of my parents
my daughter (2):
clock: c**k… and whenever she’s at my Granny’s she’ll point out every CLOCK in the room..
computer: ‘puter.. i find myself calling it a ‘puter quite often too!
my fave- thankyou; tank too.. in a quiet little whisper when she’s saying thankyou to anyone but her family
annd I just love listening to her sing/mouth the words to any Adele or Bruno Mars… she can totally say “yea yea yea yea” and “no no no no no” in Bruno Mars’ song “Marry You”
Lol, love this! My little 2YO Penelope loves to have us draw Thumbkin on her fingers. Then she walks around proudly telling everyone “this is Fuckin!”. Really stops a conversation
One Christmas Eve as we were on our way to a Christmas party my then 4 year old son began singing along to a Christmas song playing on the radio…when he got to the chorus he sang proudly, “Fleas on my dog!! Fleas on my dog!!” as in FELIZ NAVIDAD!! My son is 17 now, but to this day “Fleas on my Dog!” is still our favorite Christmas song!!
For my oldest, “-cycle” or “-sicle” was always turned into “-skittle”. We ate popskittles, rode biskittles and triskittles and pointed out motorskittles whenever we saw them. I actually cried the first time she asked for a Popsicle.
My favorite was “elephant”. From 1-2 years old, my daughter very sweetly smiled, and when you’d ask her to say “elephant” (which we did quite often as a party trick), she would reply with her perfectly clear, “Numbnut.” Yes, somehow Numbnut=Elephant. Best party trick to show friends ever, and I so wish that I had recording of it now that she’s nearly 4 and there’s not a numbnut in sight.
When my 21 month old daughter asks for water, it comes out sounding more like vodka. Cracks us up everytime, but I’m just waiting for the inevitable question to come from her daycare teacher.
We recently decided to share the wonder of the Star Wars movies with our 3 and 6 year old. (the original 3 of course) Now, our 3 year old asks for his daily viewing of “Star Whores”. After several giggles, we obviously tried to correct him, but to no avail. Hopefully he won’t be sharing the name of his favorite movie at daycare
We still go for rides in the “alligator” (the elevator) when ever we visit great grandma at her apartment building, and my youngest daughter whose name is Savanah was dubbed “Sa-Sa” by her older sister and it has stuck ever since
Japamas = pajamas
nibbles = nipples
chicken pops = chicken pox
netflakes = netflix
nark = milk
donk = plant
inapopiate = inappropriate
bapatism =baptism
My son used to say helico-la-la-lopter, hearing him say it made my heart melt so we used to get him to say it as often as possible. My daughter said “me me” instead of excuse me and she said syrbup instead of syrup for the longest time. I got a little teary eyed on Saturday when I realized that she no longer used those 2 mispronunciations. She’s 4-1/2 and quickly growing up!